Arthurian hero’s chivalric prowess is here marred significantly by his adulterous liaison
with Guenevere. The cemetery scene, which in Chrétien’s version proclaimed Lancelot as
the future liberator of Gorre, now contains two tombstones that the hero must lift.
Lancelot’s failure to remove the second stone predicts his subsequent exclusion from the
Grail quest. His cousin Bohort joins Perceval and Galahad on the final quest of the Grail.
The Queste begins with a description of Galahad’s uncanny powers as chosen hero
and ends with his privileged viewing of the mysterious Grail vessel. But the bulk of the
tale is concerned with attempts of less successful knights: Lionel, Hector, and Gawain,
who form the elite of earthly questers, and Perceval and Bohort, who are chosen but less
accomplished than Galahad. The adventures of these knights along with their visions and
dreams are routinely interpreted by hermits who offer to tell the senefiance and verité of
what we read.
Providing a suite for the Queste and a conclusion for the entire cycle, the Mort le roi
Artu recounts the final holocaust on Salisbury Plain in which Arthur and his bastard son,
Mordred, kill each other. This violent finale, marking the end of the cycle of tales by
signaling the end of the whole Arthurian world, results from an inexorable chain of cause
and consequence set in motion by the renewed love affair between Lancelot and
Guenevere. Despite its emphasis on chronological sequence, this chronicle of Arthur’s
last days does not come to a definitive close. Arthur, though dead and buried, is also
conveyed out to sea by fairies from the isle of Avalon, thus leaving open the possibility
of his return and the return of the adventure story that bears his name.
E.Jane Burns
[See also: CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES; GRAIL AND GRAIL ROMANCES;
PERCEVAL CONTINUATIONS; POST-VULGATE ROMANCE; PROSE ROMANCE
(ARTHURIAN); ROBERT DE BORON; ROMANCE]
Frappier, Jean, ed. La mort le roi Artu. Geneva: Droz, 1964.
Micha, Alexandre, ed. Merlin: roman du XIIIe siecle. Geneva: Droz, 1979.
——, ed. Lancelot: roman en prose du XIIIe siecle. 9 vols. Geneva: Droz, 1978–83.
Pauphilet, Albert, ed. La queste del saint Graal. Paris: Champion, 1921.
Sommer, H.Oskar, ed. The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances. Washington, D.C.:
Carnegie Institute, 1908–16.
Lacy, Norris J., ed. Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in
Translation, trans. Norris J. Lacy et al. 5 vols. New York: Garland, 1993–.
Burns, E.Jane. Arthurian Fictions: Rereading the Vulgate Cycle. Columbus: Ohio State University
Press, 1985.
Frappier, Jean. Étude sur La mort le roi Artu. Geneva: Droz, 1961.
Kibler, William W., ed. The Lancelot-Grail Cycle: Text and Transformations. Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1994.
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